Monday night, as I walked to Wriston quad to interview sophomore Emma Rosenkranz about her recently created jewelry line, I expected to find a teenage girl who began making jewelry because of the dullness of quarantine and started selling it, well, because why not. Boy was I wrong. From the minute Emma started to tell me about the enormous, comprehensive project that is Threading Stories, it became clear that this was not merely a hobby but a real business. Behind Emma’s collection of simple, elegant, and trendy gold-and silver-plated jewelry is not only an inspirational message, but also an intricate and rigorous creative and strategic process– from mood-boards to marketing.
Emma has loved jewelry and creating for as long as she can remember. “I geek out on crafts,” she told me, smiling. At just nine-years-old she found a way to give her crafts a purpose, selling beaded bracelets and necklaces at summer sidewalk sales in her neighborhood in Connecticut and donating all proceeds to cancer research. As she grew up, she discovered other passions such as guitar, fashion, and poetry, with jewelry-making consequently taking a back seat. When quarantine hit in March, however, Emma rediscovered her love of jewelry-making and, more importantly, decided to combine it with her passion for poetry. Thus, threading stories was born.
Each piece of jewelry from Threading Stories contains a corresponding poem written by Emma and therefore holds special value for both her and presumably her customers. The pieces and poems share titles such as My Love, and Backwards. Emma shared with me an anecdote about a young girl who purchased Threading Stories’s First Kiss necklace for her friend who had just experienced her own first kiss. The meaning behind each piece connects Emma to her customers and the poems offer each customer a look into Emma’s heart. Even if a potential customer does not buy a piece, they can still read all of the poems on the website while browsing the collection, which fulfills one of Emma’s fundamental goals of exposing her generation to poetry.
“There were a lot of late nights,” Emma recounted of the spring and summer months leading up to the Threading Stories launch. “I’m an overthinker and a perfectionist,” she says, “so whenever I start a project, it’s kind of all or nothing.” She took over her mom’s at-home office space, sourced all the necessary materials, and got to work assembling pieces. Beyond the manual labor, Emma put careful thought and planning into making Threading Stories accessible, inclusive, and socially conscious. She sources all materials from other small businesses all over the world, seeks out diversity in terms of her models, and prices the pieces extremely reasonably. Every piece costs under $25– perfect for college students who love jewelry but can’t afford to break the bank.
At the time of the Threading Stories launch in November, Emma debuted over thirty pieces, having made ten of each one. At first, all of the orders came from people that Emma knew well or had a mutual connection to. This quickly changed.
Wondering who would buy her pieces after the initial purchases by her friends and acquaintances, Emma channeled the fear that no one else would care into action. She has pursued various marketing strategies such as reaching out to influencers and using social media more broadly. “Every day I write at least twenty emails to influencers on Youtube, Instagram, and Tik Tok,” Emma explained. So far, her pieces have been featured on the accounts of influencers with up to one hundred thousand followers and she has received orders from all around the world– including Israel and Russia.
Emma runs her own Instagram and Tik Tok accounts for Threading Stories (@threading.stories), filled with charming and lighthearted pictures and videos of her peers and customers wearing the pieces. She even taught herself how to use a film camera to ensure that every image would meet her aesthetic standards. Each carefully curated picture and video makes you not only want to buy every piece, but to have a glass of wine with the people wearing them. As Emma’s business gains popularity, her creativity and thoughtfulness seem to increase. In just two weeks, Threading Stories will be launching a collection of clothing– from embroidered t-shirts to painted denim.
I am lucky enough to own a Threading Stories necklace from Emma’s upcoming spring collection and I have yet to take it off. I absolutely love the necklace itself (it’s a gorgeous gold chain with a rectangular charm containing a crescent moon) but, more importantly, I appreciate the story behind it. My love for my Threading Stories necklace reveals the fundamental principle around which Emma has centered her brand– that jewelry is most enjoyable when it contains meaning.